Dear Heart Rose
Chat rooms were perhaps the first Internet base for social communication. I don't know why people started using nicknames instead of their real names, but it was the case and it caught on ever since. Even with the advent of Facebook and its inherent feature of pushing users towards having to transfer their true identity to cyberspace, many users would still prefer to conceal their real identity or use unreal names as their usernames. Despite all the measures taken by Facebook management and enlightening releases by the groups concerned with security, many of us can't yet dislodge their fear of revealing their true identity or using real information on their profiles. But this is not my concern now. It's a matter of personal preference in the end. What I'm concerned about now is a matter that is sociolinguistic in principle. Is the use of usernames (or otherwise called nicknames) when talking to other online friends a sign of intimacy (closeness) or an attempt to keep ...